#The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft

[blueiscoool]

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft

Five things you probably didn’t know about the biggest art heist in history

Most art galleries and museums are famous for the art they contain. London’s National Gallery has Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”; “The Starry Night” meanwhile, is held at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, in good company alongside Salvador Dalì’s melting clocks, Andy Warhol’s soup cans and Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, however, is now more famous for the artwork that is not there, or at least, that is no longer there.

On March 18 1990 the museum fell prey to history’s biggest art heist. Thirteen works of art estimated to be worth over half a billion dollars — including three Rembrandts and a Vermeer — were stolen in the middle of the night, while the two security guards sat in the basement bound in duct tape.

The robbery is a treasure trove of surprising facts and unexpected plot twists. Here are five things that make the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and its famous theft, so interesting.

The woman behind the building:

Isabella Stewart Gardner, the museum’s founder and namesake, is a fascinating character. The daughter and eventual widow of two successful businessmen, Gardner was a philanthropist and art collector who built the museum to house her stash.

“When she opened the museum in 1903 she mandated that it be free of charge, to gain the appreciation and the attendance of all of Boston,” Stephan Kurkjian, author of “Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist”, said in the programme. “Her museum, at that point in time, was the largest collection of art by a private individual in America.”

Gardner also had links to the fledgling campaign for women’s political rights. The museum displays the photographs and letters of her friend Julia Ward Howe, an organizer of two US suffrage societies, and a print of Ethel Smyth, a composer and close friend of the English Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst.

Gardner met Smyth through their mutual friend, the painter John Singer Sargent, whose portrait of Gardener raised eyebrows for the low-cut neckline he gave her.

Gardner seemed to enjoy flirting with scandal and gossip: she once arrived at a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in a hat band emblazoned with the name of her favorite baseball team, Red Sox, and an illustration in a January 1897 edition of the Boston Globe showed her apparently taking one of Boston Zoo’s lions for a walk.

Somewhat ironically, when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, Gardner told her museum guards that, if they saw anyone trying to rob them, they should shoot to kill.

The art not taken:

The thieves’ loot is estimated to be worth over half a billion dollars. However, they left the building’s most expensive artifact: “The Rape of Europa” by Titian, which Gardner bought from a London art gallery in 1896, then a record price for an old master painting.

Why commit history’s greatest art heist and leave without the priciest piece in the museum? Well, size may have played a role. The largest artwork taken was Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” famous for being Rembrandt’s only seascape and measures roughly 5x4 feet. “The Rape of Europa,” meanwhile, is larger, at nearly 6x7 feet.

The Napoleon factor:

Around 2005, the investigation into the stolen artworks took a detour to the French island of Corsica in the Meditteranean Sea. Two Frenchmen with alleged ties to the Corsican mob were trying to sell two paintings: a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. Former FBI Special Agent Bob Wittman was involved in a sting to try and buy them — but the operation eventually fell apart when the men were arrested for selling art taken from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice instead.

Why would “Corsican mobsters,” as correspondent Randi Kaye described them in the programme, be interested in robbing a Boston art museum? The answer could lie in the Bronze Eagle Finial, the 10-inch ornament stolen from the top of a Napoleonic flag during the heist.

“It was sort of an odd choice for the thieves to take (the Finial),” Kaye said, “but it turns out that Corsica is essentially the homeland of Napoleon.” The French emperor was born on the island in 1769, and a national museum is now housed in his former family home.

“It is a very compelling notion,” Kelly Horan, Deputy Editor of the Boston Globe, said in the programme, “that a Corsican band of gangsters might have tried to steal back their flag and pull off the entire rest of the heist in the process.”

A rock’n’roll suspect:

March 18 1990 was not the first time a Rembrandt had been stolen from a Boston museum. In 1975, career criminal and art thief Myles Connor walked into Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and walked out with a Rembrandt tucked into his oversized coat pocket. He was the FBI’s first suspect in the Gardner case, however the walls of federal prison — where he was incarcerated on drugs charges — gave him a pretty solid alibi.

When he wasn’t lifting famous artworks from their displays, Connor was a musician. It was through gigging that he met Al Dotoli, who worked with stars including Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli.

In 1976 Connor was jailed for a separate art theft committed in Maine. Hoping to use his stolen Rembrandt to leverage a lesser sentence, he needed Dotoli — who was on tour with Dionne Warwick — to turn the painting in to the authorities on his behalf.

An invisible thief?

One of the stolen artworks, Édouard Manet’s “Chez Tortoni,” was taken from the museum’s Blue Room on the first floor. The painting stands out for two reasons, the first being its frame. The thieves left almost all of the frames behind, cutting some out of the front.

“To even leave remnants of the painting(s) behind was savage,” Horan said. “In my mind, it’s sort of like slashing someone’s throat.”

The “Chez Tortoni” frame was unusual for where it was left, though: not in the room it was stolen from, but in the chair of the security office downstairs. Even more remarkable, not a single motion detector was set off in the Blue Room. Bar investigating the possibility of ghost robbers, investigators wondered if this pointed to the plot being an inside job.

“At the FBI we found that about 89% of museum institutional heists are inside jobs,” Wittman said. “That’s how these things get stolen.”

By Caitlin Chatterton.

[pppaperwork]

Wealth & Status in Baroque and Rococo

Having it all must be tough :(

There are never ending decisions to make, about silly things like ideal garden shrubbery height, drapery thread count, ornate frames, silver, or gold? To show it all off or to cover it up? To spend or to save? To invest in the Church or one's own extravagant lifestyle? Virtuous piety or worldly comforts?

To nurture Faith or Ego?

Ceiling painted by Johann Baptist Enderle, 1772

Jean-François de Troy, The Declaration of Love (1731)

All these competing ideals are exactly what set the Baroque and Rococo periods apart.

Let's start at the beginning - well, sort of - with Baroque.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Holofernes 1612-13

Throughout Europe Catholicism sees a decline in followers going into the 17th century, due to popularization of Marin Luther's Protestant reformation.

Protestantism came as a response to shady behavior within the Catholic Church, which had previously held unchallenged cultural and political power. This 'divine' power within the Church attracted wealth, and wealthy people looking to buy in.

I cannot stress enough how motivated by money the Catholic Church was at this time. Many Popes like Leo X actually sold physical certificates called 'indulgences' which were essentially Fast-passes through Purgatory, should its keeper die before confessing their sins in penance.

Through generous donations to the Catholic Church, one could actually buy themselves a ticket into heaven, circa ~ 1550.

This wasn't great optics to German monk, and founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. And many people agreed, causing a novel decline in Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church desperately needed a rebrand.

Caravaggio [?] , The Crowning with Thorns, 1603

Baroque paints Catholicism in a more virtuous, penitent, moody, and modest light. Visual elements like high contrast light and shadows, mostly religious imagery, "normal" looking figures that no longer strive to be the Renaissance's perfect man, nor Rococo's dashing picture of youth and indulgence, they look like us.

It's hard to say if the Baroque art movement really saved the Church from losing followers, but it did spark a global popularization of Baroque and is responsible for subsequent movements in fine art and architecture across the world!

ie. the global Baroque, Rococo, heavy influences on the Dutch golden age of painting.

Church of St. Peter of Andahuaylillas - Peru, 1620s

Rembrant, Lady and Gentleman in Black and Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633, Dutch [missing from ISG Museum since 1990]

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Progress of Love: Love Letters, 1771-72, French

In the century to follow, Baroque artwork would become a status symbol in itself, along with its pious and devout lifestyle.

French aristocrats and artists like Fragonard coming into the 18th century rejected this ideology, along with King Louis XIV's frugal, somewhat Baroque style of ruling. Rococo takes clear visual elements of Baroque and applies them to a generally more frivolous, lighthearted, romantic subject matter, with clear emphasis on material wealth.

Wealth was shown and represented in excess, lifestyles full of lush scenery and architecture like Versailles. Material goods and conspicuous consumption ruled the aristocratic nobility (art buying community) at the time.

In the Rococo period once again, in Renaissance fashion, art patrons are shifting toward a search for aesthetic perfection, beauty, and divinity in humans and on earth.

A harsh contrast from a hundred years prior, in the midsts of Baroque's influence of frugality, devotion to faith, and denouncement of worldly comforts. This shift could have many catalysts, including the continuing spread of Protestant religions, or the rebellion against a previously strict, sometimes oppressive, religious church-state under the reign of Louis XIV.

Tapestry L'Aurore et Céphale, from Les Tentures de François Boucher Series, Painted by Francois Boucher, 1776-77, French

The Studio, Honoré Daumier, 1870, French

Ultimately, today the Rococo period is iconic in reference to the French Revolution.

Similarly to Rococo's start, as a rebellion against a meek and mild social norm, Rococo's end is tied to the death of the French noble class; at the hands of French citizens who were facing the consequences (famine, poverty, poor living conditions) of the French Nobility's over-indulgent, expensive lifestyle.

I can only assume that after the torches, pitchforks, and guillotining of the French Monarchy, Rococo's frills and embellishments probably seemed pretty... cringe.

Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1755 (Rococo)

The Execution of Louis XVI by H. de la Charlerie, 1793 (Neo-classical)

The Death of Marat, Jacques-Louis David, 1793 (Neo-classical)

[frstndlstlns]

Charlesgate Confidential

The eighth floor of the Charlesgate Hotel was invisible.

A light went on across the way.

— Scott Von Doviak

[o-the-mts]

23 years ago…

[timmurleyart]

Thief in the night. 🍇🖼(mixed media collage)🌟✨

[triflingthing]

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, home of the biggest known art theft in history.

[memecucker]

There's literally no such thing as "art theft" lmao. You're a reactionary.

The 1990 heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston resulted in the theft of estimated to be around $600million making it the highest valued art theft in history and one of if not the largest unsolved heists in modern history

[carveredlunds]

So, I just found @interviewwiththevampireart, and it inspired me to look for this portrait in the dining room of the Dubai apartment (screenshot from 1.02):

It took about two minutes of Googling to find out that it's Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, painted in 1633.

This is from the Wikipedia entry on the painting:

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee is a 1633 oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It is classified as a history painting and is among the largest and earliest of Rembrandt's works. It was purchased by Bernard Berenson for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1869 and was displayed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston before its theft in 1990; it remains missing.

This is such a small detail, but it just proves how amazing the set design is in this show. Loumand have one of the most famous missing pieces of art in America just hanging in their dining room. I'm sure other people have noticed this before, but I thought it was so cool, and I wanted to share!

[jpeg-dot-jpeg]

Dowd Crime Family Headcanons

I’m so obsessed with the idea of Tim being from a family full of superheroes and the dichotomy of that with the idea that Bernard is from a family full of supervillians and also i think its just hilarious, so

• Bernard is descended from the O’Dowd Crime Family in Boston - essentially the Irish Mob

• His dad specializes in art theft. If you’ve ever heard of the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum... yeah. 

• Despite the fact that the perpetrators of that robbery were never technically caught, it was a pretty shoddy job, done early on in Mr. Dowd’s (im sorry he literally doesn’t have a name i dont know what else to call him) career when he was still trying to make his bones. Soon after, to avoid the heat, he fled south to Gotham where he met the future Mrs. Dowd!

• The future Mrs. Dowd (she doesn’t have a NAME) works in art restoration at the Gotham Museum of Modern Art (and on the side is an extremely skilled in forgery shhhhhh)

• Bernard has a ton of aunts and uncles and cousins and stuff on his dad’s side of the family, but they all live in Massachusetts, so he doesn’t see them often.

• The relative he sees the most is his auntie Nina! Yes, Nina Dowd the archeologist i.e. The Mighty Endowed, who uses the abilities granted to her via magical artifacts for various nefarious schemes.

• Pretty early on in his life, Bernard gets the sense that his parents aren’t exactly... good people. From a young age he’s trained in areas of morally questionable expertise (safe cracking, martial arts, weapons proficiency, etc.) but his heart really isn’t in it. Bernard just wants to be a regular kid with parents who do something he can be proud of. It’s why he becomes so obsessed with Batman and Robin as a kid. Those are people who help others! They use their skills to do good! They’re heroes! 

• As he gets older, Bernard becomes more cynical when it comes to powerful people. The idea of Batman being controlled by a shadow government isn’t weird to him because,,,,, that’s literally what his family does. The O’Dowd Crime Family has fingers in political pies all over the Northeastern U.S. It makes sense to him that Batman would pick new Robins out of orphanages when the old ones die because,,,, the crime syndicate up north indoctrinates young orphans into their gang too.

• Despite his family’s expectations, Bernard never takes an interest in the ‘family business’

• He is such a Just Some Guy

• One of his relatives introducing him and his cousins like “Yeah, these are my nieces and nephews, Switchblade, Big Jack, Reaper, Baby Teeth, Lil Eoin, Shredder, and,,,,, Bernard.”

• Pretty soon in Tim and Bernard’s relationship, Bernard’s criminal contacts come to light bc obviously all of the bats would be doing background checks and,,,,

Dick: do,,,, do you guys think he knows?

Duke: i mean,,, he Has to. Right?

Damian: Only Drake would be so idiotic as to consort with someone who no doubt plans to destroy our family.

Stephanie: okay, so who’s gonna tell him.

• Eventually Dick is the one who brings it up and Tim is like “??? Yeah, obviously I knew about his family. It’s no biggie tho. He’s Different <3″

Dick: Tim I am begging you to date literally Anyone other than the son of world renowned art thieves with connections to the irish mob

Tim: no <3

• Bruce minds his business bc he has never dated anyone who isn’t a criminal

• Cass gives Bernard her seal of approval and that’s pretty much enough for everyone

• The bats try to give bernard the shovel talk and he’s like “lol okay. i’ve been receiving death threats since before i was born, but this is cute.”

• It works out because Bernard is the only person with a family crazy enough to rival Tim’s

• Tim loves his boyfriend and never ceases to be amazed at how good and kind and strong he’s become despite all of the bad influences in his life. Bernard gives him hope.

[thebunnycruise]

National Treasures

Poppy Flowers (also known as Vase And Flowers and Vase with Viscaria) is a painting by Vincent van Gogh with an estimated value of US$55 million [1] which was stolen from Cairo's Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum twice; first in 1977 (and recovered after a decade), then again in August 2010 and has yet to be found

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee is a 1633 oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It was purchased by Bernard Berenson for  Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1869 and was displayed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston before its theft in 1990; it remains missing

[whataperfectwasteoftime]

The Art of the Double-Cross

Pairing: Marcus Pike x f!reader

Rating: T (allusions to spice, but that’s it)

Word Count: 3200

Warnings: Descriptions of minor peril, enemies to lovers, allusions to violence but no actual violence, I’m choosing not to say much about this because it gives the whole game away. More notes at the bottom.

Summary: “People have been trying to solve the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum theft for decades,” she says quietly, putting her hand on his arm. “Decades, and yet you find the one detail everyone else had overlooked.”

A/N: Gif is Agent Greer because I can't stop thinking about this as "on the job" Marcus Pike lol

Masterlist

Agent Pike moves silently through the abandoned factory, deftly avoiding the pieces of broken glass that litter the floor underneath broken windows. Dust lies thick on every surface, filtering in and out of twin flashlight beams as they bounce slowly down the stale air of the hallway.

It appears as though not one soul has stepped foot in this building for decades.

Agent Pike knows better.

“Where do you think they’ll be?” a voice calls out beside him, the words quiet as thought their owner is afraid of disturbing the grave-like quality of the environment.

“Basement,” he answers at the same volume. “I’ll bet you anything there’s a hatch hidden somewhere.”

At the end of the hallway, the two investigators come to an old door with peeling paint.

“Locked,” his companion mutters as she tests the knob. “Agent, would you mind…?”

Pike nods. Drawing his sidearm as a precaution, he takes a small step backward for stability and then rams his foot into the door just above the lock.

It crashes open with a bang that makes both of them wince.

Peering into the darkness, it’s clear that the room is just as empty as the rest of the factory, so he re-holsters his gun and steps forward.

The woman next to him laughs breathlessly. “That worked well,” she quips.

“What can I say,” he chuckles quietly in return.

The two of them fan out in opposite directions, pacing the perimeter of the room, looking for some method of entry to the space they know is lurking below them.

“Anything?” she asks from the other side of the room.

Agent Pike casts his eyes over an old filing cabinet and down to the floor.

“Nothing,” he answers. “Wait…”

His flashlight lands on a large scuff mark on the ground beside the cabinet.

“What is it?” She crosses the room in an instant, standing beside him again as he examines the mark.

“Hold this.” He hands her the flashlight and moves the large metal object to the side with a grunt—it weighs a ton—but he hardly needs to move it six inches before his suspicion is confirmed: there’s a hidden crawlspace underneath.

“That’s a tight fit, Agent Pike,” his companion whispers after he maneuvers the filing cabinet away from the small opening.

“I think we’ll manage,” he responds with a wry smile.

He lies down on the floor, covering the front of his suit in dust, but he hardly cares—this is going to be the biggest discovery of the art world in a century. Peering down into the black abyss, he signs his flashlight around. It’s just a small room, just as musty and seemingly unused as the rest of the building.

“Clear,” he murmurs under his breath. “I’m going down.”

“Be careful, Agent Pike,” she warns, her eyes wide with trepidation.

“S’alright,” he replies cooly. “Nothing bad down there except for thirty years’ worth of cobwebs.”

He swings his legs over the side and, with a quick, calming breath, lowers himself into the darkness.

“A-Agent?” she calls out from above.

“All good,” he answers. “Need a hand down?”

Agent Pike watches as she carefully dangles her legs in the beam of his flashlight. She shifts, trying to lower herself down while maintaining her grip on her own torch. Suddenly, she slips, a frantic “Oh!” cutting through the silence as she falls through the opening and into his waiting arms.

“That was farther down than I expected,” she confesses. “Thought I was gonna break a leg there for a second.”

He looks deep into her eyes, their faces impossibly close—closer than they’ve ever been.

“Would I ever let anything happen to you?” he asks softly, a tender smile spreading across his face.

Smiling back, she shakes her head.

“No,” she whispers.

“No,” he agrees. “Now let’s go recover some stolen art, huh?”

Together, they turn, flashlights pointed toward the far side of the small room. And there, in the harsh light, is the most amazing sight Agent Pike has ever seen in all his years on the job.

His heart is pounding as he hastily takes inventory.

Vermeer. Three Rembrandts. Five Degas. Flinck. Manet. Chinese gu. French Imperial Eagle.

“It’s all here,” he whispers. If she notices how rough his voice is with emotion, she doesn’t mention it. “Every piece.”

“People have been trying to solve the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum theft for decades,” she says quietly, putting her hand on his arm. “Decades, and yet you find the one detail everyone else had overlooked. The one little detail that brought us here to this abandoned paper mill in the middle of nowhere, Texas.”

“Middle of nowhere?” Agent Pike teases. “This is my hometown. Why else do you think I recognized the residue on the footprint immediately?”

“They’ll be writing books about this moment, Agent,” she says reverently.

“Wow,” he breathes, not able to take his eyes off of the priceless collection for one moment. “Books, huh?”

“Unfortunately, they won’t be ending the way you envisioned. This is the end of the line, Pike.”

Suddenly frowning, he whirls around.

“What do you mean?”

Her face is a maelstrom of regret as she slowly draws her sidearm. “I’m sorry, Agent.”

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“I’m double crossing you.”

“What?”

“Y’know, I’m working with the uh… um… the bad guys.”

“…What?”

Completely and utterly bewildered, Marcus cocks his head to the side and scratches his head.

It’s such a comical sight that you start to laugh.

…Three Hours Earlier

“I wanna know…” you say teasingly, sloshing the amber liquid in your glass around in a circular motion as you stare at your boyfriend across the tabletop, “…what’s like, your craziest fantasy? Like the weirdest fucking thing.”

The drink buzzes pleasantly in your system, making your tongue loose and your motions languid.

It gives Marcus the giggles.

He looks back at you with a cheeky expression, raising his eyebrows saucily as he takes another sip of his drink. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he says with a grin.

“‘S’why I asked,” you say indignantly. “Obviously.”

He laughs for a moment, then sets his drink down with a thoughtful look. “I don’t… I don’t know,” he begins. “I mean, I feel like you and I have… done just about everything,” he says, the tips of his ears turning pink as he talks. “We’re pretty adventurous, after all. Anything I would have considered to be a fantasy, we’ve already done.”

You smile back at him, hundreds of memories swirling through your head at his words—flashes of images containing some of the wildest, dirtiest, and best sex you’ve ever had in your life.

“That’s such a cop-out, though,” you pout, sticking out your lower lip. “There’s gotta be something. A daydream. A—A scene from a movie, anything.”

Marcus shrugs and holds out his hands. “I’ve got nothing,” he chuckles. “Well, nothing sexual, I suppose.”

The qualifying statement makes your ears perk up. You set your glass to the side and put your elbows on the table, your face resting in your hands as you lean forward and look expectantly at him. “Go on…”

“Oh—I just… No, there’s—haha—there’s nothing, I was—I don’t know why I said that.”

You lean further forward, almost halfway across the table, eyes boring into his with a challenging stare.

“Spill it,” you demand giddily.

Marcus’s face has gone from pink to beet red. Still chuckling, he breaks eye contact, staring down at his drink as he seemingly gathers his thoughts.

“I haven’t thought about this in ages,” he murmurs, shaking his head in amusement.

“Thought about what?”

With a heavy sigh, Marcus meets your eyes again. “Okay. So you know the uh, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, right? Most famous art theft of all time?”

“You may have mentioned it,” you tease.

“No one’s ever found the art,” he says. “None of it. The trail is cold, now, but… I dunno, I just…”

“You’ve fantasized about being the one to recover it,” you offer.

“Silly, I know.” Marcus ducks his head.

“It’s not.”

You look at him—really look at him. You study his warm brown eyes, with the laugh lines that come from his near-constant smiles. His expression is open and earnest, his eyebrows upturned slightly as he takes in your sincere response. His hair, as always, is slightly unruly, even more so tonight after a couple of drinks.

How fucking cute is it that Marcus Pike’s ultimate fantasy is solving a world-famous art heist himself?

You tip back the last sip of your drink and set it down heavily on the table.

“Let’s do it,” you announce.

Marcus frowns in confusion. “Do what?”

Your smile is a sly one.

“We’re gonna re-enact your fantasy.”

Now:

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Marcus says, but his lips are starting to quirk upward in amusement.

You shrug. “Does it have to? This is all just pretend—why can’t I be the bad guy?”

“You’re supposed to be my love interest,” he counters.

“Why can’t I be both?”

“Isn’t the point of fantasy to eventually lean into the uh… romance bit of it?”

“What’s more romantic than a redemption arc?”

“How’s that gonna work, exactly?”

“I can’t tell you,” you say indignantly. “That’ll ruin the whole fucking story!”

“I thought this was my story,” Marcus teases.

“Just trust me on this,” you pout.

Marcus holds up his hands placatingly. “Fine, fine.”

You clear your throat dramatically.

“I’m afraid this is the end of the line, Agent Pike.”

He doesn’t miss how the gun quivers in her hands.

“After all this time,” he remarks softly, shaking his head in equal parts disappointment and heartbreak. “After all we’ve been through together, this is how it ends? Fine. But before you do it, I want you to tell me why.”

“Does it matter?” she asks.

“It matters to me.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

At his words, a tear slips down her cheek. “I—I can’t. They… they said—”

“What did they say?” He can’t help the way his voice gentles at the sight of her crying.

“If I don’t go through with this, they—” she hiccups dramatically. “Well, I’d rather the entire place go up in flames, and me with it, than face that fate.”

“Don’t say that,” Agent Pike says firmly. “We can get you out of this, I can help you.”

More tears course down her cheeks as she shakes her head. “It’s too late for that.”

“Why?”

“The failsafe.”

He shakes his head, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s a reason I said I’d rather go up in flames,” she whispers.

It’s then that Agent Pike realizes he can smell the faintest tinge of smoke.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffles.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. He looks around the small basement, quickly jumping to action—grabbing the old desk and dragging it to the center of the room below the trapdoor and standing on it and peering into the room above them.

“It’s no use,” she says tearfully. “We’re trapped.”

“No. Don’t say that. Never say that. I’m not giving up.” He jumps down, coming face to face with her. Carefully, so carefully, he takes her face in his hands and lowers his forehead to gently rest against hers. “I said I’d never let anything happen to you, and I meant it.”

“Stubborn,” she laughs shakily.

“Always have been,” he agrees quietly.

“Agent—” she whispers.

“Don’t call me that,” he entreats softly. “Call me by my name.”

“I can’t.”

“You never have,” he says, wondering. “Why?”

“If I let myself… be so familiar, I—”

“You what?”

“I’d never be able to stop,” she says breathlessly.

“Say it,” he commands huskily. “If this is really the end of the line, you’ll say it for me.”

She’s already leaning closer, her eyes half-lidded as they finally give into the pull they’ve felt for so long.

“Marcus,” she breathes—reverently, lovingly, desperately.

It’s the last sound she makes before he presses his lips to hers.

It’s a fervent kiss, spurred on by years of yearning and the peril of their current predicament. His hands grab, clenching around her hips, holding her jaw roughly as he deepens the kiss. She meets him with equal ardor—her teeth nip his lower lip and he groans deep in his throat. Just before he truly begins to lose himself, however, he tears himself away.

“Stop,” he pleads with her. “Stop this. I’ve gotta get you out of here.”

“Marcus—” she starts, but he’s already striding across the room.

“Help me with these,” he orders briskly, grabbing as much of the art as he can carry, climbing back onto the desk, and shoving them through the trapdoor.

He’s not as careful as he’d usually be with the art—hell, he didn’t even take his archival gloves out of his front pocket—but this isn’t exactly what he’d call an ideal situation. Even still, if there’s a chance he can save the art and their lives, well, he’ll damn-well try.

She grabs the Chinese gu and hands it up to him. “You’re beyond crazy, you know that?” she says, shaking her head as he sets it gently on the floor above them.

“So I’ve been told,” he shrugs, jumping down to grab some more.

“It’s why I love you.”

Marcus stops, nearly dropping the Degas he’s carrying.

“Even if we don’t make it out,” she says, her voice wavering slightly, “I’ll have died happy knowing that I told you.”

Marcus squares his jaw, leveling her with an even stare.

“Tell me again when I get you out.”

The smoke is starting to make his eyes water, but he grits his teeth and grabs the last of the art and shoves it through the hatch. Standing on the desk, he extends his hand.

“Come on.”

She hesitates, staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Why are you saving me? I—I tried to kill you.”

Marcus’s eyes soften.

“You’ll have to wait until we’re outside for my answer,” he says with his characteristic wry smile.

Then he grabs her hand and pulls her up with him, not stopping until she’s able to grab the edges of the opening and pull herself up. Taking a brief breath to center himself, Marcus jumps up, just barely able to find purchase, and follows her.

The smoke is worse up here, making both of them cough. He can see flames licking up the door where they had entered, making it look as though all is lost.

“Oh, God,” she wails. “It’s too late.”

“Not yet, it’s not,” Marcus announces confidently. Pressing his hand to his ear, he clears his throat to dispel the smoke, and then speaks.

“Call in the calvary.”

Before she can ask him what he’s doing, he grabs her around the waist and pulls her away from the wall.

“I c-can’t breathe,” she says, panicked.

“It’s almost over,” Marcus says soothingly in her ear. He presses her against his chest, and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait for long before he hears it—the distinct rumble of engines coming from outside the factory. There’s a deafening crash and more dust and smoke fills the air as something smashes through the concrete brick.

She shrieks in surprise, burying her face into the crook of Marcus’s neck as he shields her from the falling debris.

When everything settles, all that the two of them can see is the massive combine tractor now sitting in the middle of the room.

“Wh… wha…” she stammers, too stunned for words.

“Told you this was my hometown,” Marcus reminds her with a grin. “I can’t come for a visit without stopping by the family farm, now can I?”

“Wait… wait—” you hold both of your hands up, forgetting to be in character for the moment. “When was this part of the story?”

“Well, you complicated things greatly by double-crossing me,” Marcus says seriously, “and I had to improvise.”

“With a combine tractor?”

Marcus shrugs. “Why not? My family does own a farm.”

“…Okay.”

“Anyway,” Marcus says pointedly. “We’ve got some art to save and some bad guys to arrest.”

She stares up at the giant tractor in awe. “I… I can’t believe it.”

“What can I say,” he says with a grin, “I always come prepared with a plan B.”

The tractor door opens, and an older man with greying hair, deeper laugh lines, but with a familiar set of warm, brown eyes emerges from the vehicle.

“When you told me you needed me to be ready to crash Bessie into the side of the old paper mill tonight, I thought you were crazy,” the old man remarks. “How did you know it was going to burn down?”

Marcus shoots his father a smile. “Had a hunch,” he says with a shrug, glancing down at the woman in his arms with a fond expression.

“Agent Pike—Marcus—you’re… you’re brilliant,” she breathes, staring up at him.

“Now, I believe plan A was recovering every piece of art that was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990,” Marcus says. “Do you mind…?”

“I hitched the trailer to the back just like you asked,” the older man says. “How about you an’ me carry this little makeshift museum back to the farm and alert the FBI.”

“Hang on,” Marcus says, gently grabbing her wrist to stop her from leaving his side. “First, we need to address plan C.”

“What’s plan C?” she asks.

“I owe you an answer from before,” he reminds her. “You asked why I saved you after you tried to kill me.”

A solitary tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says softly. “But I need you to know—I did it because I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Her breath catches in her throat at the adoration in Marcus’s gaze.

“I love you too,” she says breathlessly.

Their lips meet for the second time that night—just as passionate, but far less urgent. He’s in no rush this time, after all. He explores her mouth, his tongue dancing with hers as he tilts his head and presses the length of his body against hers. She gasps softly when she feels his cock starting to stiffen.

“Wait!”

“H-whhuh?” Marcus stutters, appearing dazed.

“Is your dad still in the room?” you ask, raising one eyebrow skeptically.

“Oh! Uh… no,” he answers hastily. “No he, uh, he took the art and left already. So we’re alone,” he says, coming in for another kiss.

“Marcus,” you interrupt again.

He makes an impatient questioning noise, his lips still searching for yours.

“Isn’t the building still on fire?”

“Who’s fantasy is this, yours or mine?” he teases.

“I’m just pointing out the continuity errors.”

“We’ll make love as the factory burns around us,” he laughs, capturing your lips with a sweet kiss.

“Or we could just move this to the bedroom.”

Marcus’s eyes darken.

“Yeah,” he agrees huskily. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

You pout your lip coquettishly and stare up at him with exaggeratedly wide eyes.

“Lead the way, Agent Pike.”

**

OKAYYYYYY LOL so this absolute crack fic was based on this meme:

And @littlebirdsbookshelf and I decided that Marcus would ABSOLUTELY fantasize about solving the Isabella Stewart Gardner theft himself LMAOOOOOOOOOO

[grntaire]

oomfie you're from the boston area right... i'm going on a trip there (and then to buffalo) next week and if you're willing to spare some hot tips they would be greatly appreciated... especially for like queer shows or clubs or whateva :0 only if you want to spare such info ofc!

omg yeah i got you!!

for queer places my fav is club cafe <3 good vibes generally and their food is LIT. cathedral station is a queer sports bar but it's really just a cool space all-around, and blend in dorchester is great too! be warned it's the last few weeks of this season of drag race so if you're out at a queer place on a friday night it'll be insane to get a spot

for more general things, take a walk through boston common bc it really is gorg! hit up the prudential center and there's restaurants that half rooftop access and i think (?) there's a place at the top where you can see the whole city it's gorgeous :)

faneuil hall/quincy market is def super touristy but the area around there has interesting historical buildings which i think is worth checking out!

boston also has some lit museums: i've been to the aquarium, the museum of science, and the museum of fine arts, and are all super fun! i've never been to the isabella stewart gardner museum but it's up next on my boston list bc a) it's beautiful but also b) it's home to the hightest-value museum art theft in history and they have the empty frames up on the wall which is kind of metal imo.

if you're into classical music i have friends singing at symphony hall in bach's b minor mass next week which if you haven't heard, it's sooooo good

the subways (aka the "t") is... not great but is convenient to get around the city. it runs until about 1am, sometimes almost 2 depending on if it's a weekend or if there's a game at the garden or not. but it's not too tricky to navigate, you're either going inbound or outbound and the lines are all colors. imo it's easier to understand than the mta in new york but i also grew up with it lol

i hope this was helpful & feel free to hit me up as it gets closer! i love boston and as much as massachusetts ppl get a bad rep for being rude it's very much that we're a people who are kind but not nice–any local will gladly help you on your way!

[theoutcastrogue]

Is Stealing a Work of Art Ever Excusable? One Master Thief Claims Yes The world’s greatest living art thief is likely a 52-year-old Frenchman named Stéphane Breitwieser, who has stolen from some 200 museums, taking art worth an estimated total of $2 billion. While working on a book about him, I interviewed Breitwieser extensively, during which he discussed the details of dozens of his heists—and also expressed the brazen belief that his art crimes should be considered forgivable. But only his crimes. Breitwieser said that he didn’t even like being called an art thief, because all other art thieves seemed to be nothing more than art-hating thugs. This includes the most accomplished ones, like the two men who robbed Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on the night of St. Patrick’s Day, 1990. The Gardner thieves assaulted the pair of overnight guards, bound the guards’ eyes and mouths with duct tape, and handcuffed them to pipes in the basement. Then the Gardner robbers yanked down a magnificent Rembrandt seascape, and one of the men stuck a knife in it. Breitwieser can hardly bring himself to imagine it—the blade ripping along the edge of the work, paint flakes spraying, canvas threads ripping, until the masterpiece, released from its stretcher and frame, curled up as if in death throes. The thieves, whose $500 million crime remains unsolved, then moved on to another Rembrandt and did it again. “They’re barbarians,” said Breitwieser. Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, who served as lookout on most of his thefts, never resorted to violence, or so much as the threat of violence. They stole from museums only during opening hours, using subtle diversionary tactics that permitted Breitwieser to make things disappear, magician-like, from walls or display cases, while carefully avoiding security cameras and alarm systems. The couple escaped by strolling out a museum’s front door, the artwork usually stashed beneath Breitwieser’s overcoat.

[chitsangenthusiast]

*chin in hands, kicking my feet* care to elaborate on that art heist!zukka tag?

ohh so it's an au that i've talked about on here i think a couple times before but! take this:

combine it with the (iconic) isabella stewart gardner museum theft and you've got art heist au <3

featuring museum security!sokka who really took the job bc he gets free admission and art thief!zuko who...often doesn't have the foggiest about the importance of what he's stealing, he's just taking it. which leads into a good ol' 5+1 where sokka tries to stop zuko from stealing, sure, but mostly spends his time trying to educate this idiot on the things he's trying to steal bc how are you stealing this stuff without any clue what it is you're taking????

a fun little cat-and-mouse situation that's meant to be accompanied with papercrafts inspired by the art pieces that would feature in it, klimt z.ukka was/is actually one of them lol

[homerstroystory]

today (3/18/2023) marks 33 years since the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

in 1990, thirteen works of art were stolen from the museum when two men impersonating police officers were allowed into the museum to respond to a nonexistent disturbance. two security guards at the museum were bound and left in the basement of the museum. over an hour later (81 minutes) the two thieves left the museum with the 13 works (x). since the theft, the Museum has continued to work with the FBI and the and the Attorney General to recover these works and is currently offering up to $10.1 million in rewards for information leading to the return of the stolen works (x).

among the stolen works are several pieces by Rembrandt van Rijn, including his only known seascape, as well as numerous works by Edgar Degas. additionally, an ancient Chinese vessel dating from the 12th century BCE and a Napoleonic standard were taken.

The stolen works include:

The Concert (1663-66) by Johannes Vermeer

Chez Tortoni (c. 1875) by Édouard Manet

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (c. 1663) by Rembrandt van Rijn

Landscape with an Obelisk (1638) by Govaert Flinck

Leaving the Paddock (La Sortie du Pesage) (c. 19th century) by Edgar Degas

Study for the Programme de la soirée artistique du 15 juin 1884 (Galerie Ponsin) (1884) by Edgar Degas

Study for the Programme de la soirée artistique du 15 juin 1884 (Galerie Ponsin) (1884) by Edgar Degas

Ancient Chinese Gu, bronze, c. 12th century BCE

Eagle Finial: Insignia of the First Regiment of Grenadiers of Foot of Napoleon's Imperial Guard (1813-14) by Pierre-Philippe Thomire

Procession on a Road near Florence (Cortège sur une route aux environs de Florence) (1857-60) by Edgar Degas

Three Mounted Jockeys (Jockey à cheval) (c. 1885-88) by Edgar Degas

A Lady and Gentleman in Black (1633) by Rembrandt van Rijn

Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633) by Rembrandt van Rijn

[kelliealtogether]

#23 in that AU list sounds very much up your alley 👀

[30 incredibly specific aus.]

23. pretending to be married for this high stakes heist is kind of distracting not gonna lie

So, this isn't exactly a heist, @nonbinaryjomarch. (Sorry, not sorry.) It's kind of a reverse heist. But I am really, really intrigued by the thefts from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, so here are Ronan and Adam getting the least of the stolen objects back: the Napoleonic eagle finial.

500 words total, 250 from each of their perspectives. 😌

Adam Parrish hated the way Ronan Lynch looked in a suit. 

Lynch was savagely handsome on a good day. Adam had hated it from the moment Lynch’s handler notified the FBI Art Crime Team Lynch had spotted the bronze eagle finial stolen from the Gardner Museum in the South Boston condo of a known Irish mobster. Adam still wasn’t sure why he was one of the agents put on the case, but he was sure he hated Ronan Lynch and his sharp cheekbones, steel blue eyes, and tongue like a dagger. 

He hated Lynch even more when Lynch flicked an invitation to an engagement party at the condo onto the kitchen table at a Back Bay safehouse, pointed at Adam, and said, “I’ll take him with me.” 

So Adam had become the eyes of the operation. 

And he’d become Ronan Lynch’s plus one and husband in the process. 

“This is the ball and chain?” One of the other party guests nodded at Adam then nodded at the Claddagh ring Ronan always wore on his left ring finger, the bottom of the heart pointed towards his wrist. 

Shifting a hand to rest protectively at the small of Adam’s back, Ronan eyed the guest and his lip curled. In the Boston accent he used when he worked undercover, he said, “Yeah. There a problem?” 

Hands raised defensively. “You do you, man.” 

The guest walked away. Ronan left his hand where it was. 

The sneer. The scorn. The suit. 

Adam hated Ronan Lynch.

---

Ronan Lynch hated the way Adam Parrish’s hand looked with a white gold band on his left ring finger. 

“Jesus,” Parrish breathed, wrapping his hand around the neck of the finial, his ring stark against the gold-toned eagle. “This is really it.” 

“Yeah,” Ronan replied. It wouldn’t build him any rapport, but he liked Parrish, so he added, “Something you should know about me. I never lie.” 

They’d slipped up a winding staircase to the condo’s second floor, where Tommy Mac had taken Ronan to see the solitaire he was going to propose with and where Ronan had seen the finial on Tommy’s bureau. They’d left the party downstairs, unnoticed. 

Or so Ronan had thought. 

The creak of a step snapped Ronan’s eyes from Parrish’s hand and Parrish’s eyes to Ronan's. After a second creak, the finial was off the dresser and Ronan’s back was to a wall, the bronze eagle hidden between his body and Parrish’s as Parrish pressed his body flush to Ronan’s. Ronan felt Parrish’s knuckles dig into his stomach, and Parrish’s other hand snaked between them as he ducked his head down and attached his lips to Ronan’s neck. 

Ronan couldn’t place the voice that said, “Whoa, man. Woah,” because his heart stopped the second Parrish put his mouth on Ronan’s skin. 

Lips still against Ronan’s neck, Parrish said, in a near-perfect mimic of Ronan’s Boston accent, “A little privacy here?” 

Ronan had only met Parrish a handful of times, but God. 

Ronan loved Adam Parrish.